The invention relates to the combination of speech recognition with handwriting and/or character recognition. This includes the innovation of selecting one or more best-scoring recognition candidates as a function of recognition of both handwritten and spoken representations of a sequence of one or more words to be recognized. It also includes the innovation of using character or handwriting recognition of one or more letters to alphabetically filter speech recognition of one or more words. It also includes the innovations of using speech recognition of one or more letter-identifying words to alphabetically filter handwriting recognition, and of using speech recognition to correct handwriting recognition of one or more words.